“Friends” actor Matthew Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home on Saturday. He was 54.
Perry’s body was found in his hot tub, the Los Angeles Times reported, and an autopsy will determine how he died. Investigators said it could take weeks before a final result is in, but no foul play is suspected.
Celebrity website TMZ reported that Perry engaged in a two-hour round of pickle ball Saturday morning, came home, and sent his assistant out on an errand. The assistant found his body upon returning to the home and called 911.
Perry starred as Chandler Bing on the NBC comedy, part of the network’s “Must See TV” on Thursdays for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004.
“This truly is The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken,” ”Friends” co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane and executive producer Kevin Bright said in a statement. “We will always cherish the joy, the light, the blinding intelligence he brought to every moment – not just to his work, but in life as well. He was always the funniest person in the room. More than that, he was the sweetest, with a giving and selfless heart.”
Perry was open in recent years about his lengthy battle with addiction. In his best selling memoir, he wrote about the time co-star Jennifer Aniston confronted him.
“I know you’re drinking. We can smell it,” she said, in what Perry called a “kind of weird but loving way, and the plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer.”
Perry turned 54 on August 19. He was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts to actor John Bennett Perry and former Suzanne Morrison, who served as Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s press secretary and is now married to “Dateline” correspondent Keith Morrison, the Associated Press said.
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[Featured image: FILE – Matthew Perry arrives at the premiere of “Ride” at The Arclight Hollywood Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP, File)]